


call the night by name

by addandsubtract



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Late Night Conversations, M/M, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 10:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18915223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/pseuds/addandsubtract
Summary: Dylan manages to wait half an hour after saying goodnight to sneak back into the living room.





	call the night by name

**Author's Note:**

> i've been thinking about this dynamic a lot, and i was in the mood to write something small! maybe someday i'll devote some additional words to this covert romance.
> 
> it would've been fun for me personally if jt had made it to worlds, for obvious reasons, but the narrative was not to be, i guess.

Dylan manages to wait half an hour after saying goodnight to sneak back into the living room. John is sacked out on the couch where they left him, legs tucked underneath a crocheted throw blanket that their mother had gotten Ryan when he moved in, face illuminated by the glow from his phone. He looks up when he hears Dylan’s footsteps.

“Hey,” Dylan says, voice a whisper. He’s slightly unsteady from the beer they spent the evening drinking, and he’s feeling brave. “Want to go for a walk?”

John pushes himself up into a sitting position. The angle makes it harder to see his expression, so Dylan isn’t quite ready when he asks, “At two-thirty in the morning?”

Dylan shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. And it’s not like anyone else will be awake.”

John chuckles, a low sound that makes Dylan’s heart beat faster. “Yeah, okay.”

He pushes himself up, still clothed in ratty shorts, his t-shirt that soft combination of too small and stretched from repeated washing. He yawns, scrubs a hand through his hair, and sticks his feet into his flip flops, left neatly by the front door. Dylan follows him, shoving on his slides and slipping the extra key Ryan leaves by the door into the pocket of his sweats. 

Dylan’s only been back from Slovakia for two weeks, but they’re forming a habit. Sneaking around. Dylan’s mostly the one asking, but John hasn’t said no yet.

“Where to?” John asks, once they’re outside. Dylan shrugs, and starts off in the direction of the nearby elementary school. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm, just the sound of John’s sandals slapping against the pavement, a faraway siren, the quiet shush of the breeze across the neatly manicured lawns and flowerbeds.

Dylan is humming on a low frequency, buzzed and buzzing, anticipation curling in his chest. He wonders if John can tell. If he’s obvious.

“Ryan could have still been awake,” John says, casual.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dylan says. “You could have said no, if you were worried about it.”

“I could have,” John agrees.

It would’ve been easy to play off anyway. Dylan gets wound up, has been known to go for a late night run to tire himself out. Ryan has no reason to be suspicious.

The streets are as deserted as Dylan said they’d be. They walk in silence for ten, fifteen minutes, John’s arm brushing Dylan’s occasionally, but with no clear purpose. Dylan wants to reach out, touch, but he can’t decide how. Holding John’s hand seems presumptive, grabbing his wrist seems aggressive. Ultimately, he does nothing.

The school, when they get there, is empty and quiet, the playground still. Dylan crosses the pavement and woodchips, sits on the edge of the merry go round, leaning back against one of the metal handles. After a moment, John sits next to him. He kicks his feet against the ground, starting them on a slow turn.

This is different than Dylan texting John at midnight and sneaking over to his house. Not that they couldn’t easily have gone to John’s tonight. He lives close enough. Instead they’re here, sitting side by side in the night, the air between them fraught, like surface tension. Dylan can’t decide which would be more dangerous — chancing it on the couch in Ryan’s house or this merry go round in the middle of the neighborhood.

“I used to get drunk out here with some of the neighborhood kids during the summer between seasons,” Dylan says. “We’d pass a bottle around and climb the monkey bars, or swing until someone puked. Sometimes someone would bring a joint.”

“That why you brought me here?” John asks, more curious than impatient. “Do you have a joint stashed somewhere?”

Dylan laughs. “No, I don’t know. I was just thinking about it. Everything looks exactly the same. So familiar.”

“It’s hasn’t been that long –– what, two or three years?” John laughs. He’s quiet for a moment, and then asks, “Did you hook up with anyone here?”

“Not here,” Dylan says. He jerks his chin toward the soccer field nearby, visible around the edge of the building. “There, though, yeah. One of the older guys. I gave him a blowjob in front of the bleachers.”

“I shoulda known,” John says. His hair is soft, the day’s gel having come entirely loose, and Dylan can see the crickles at the corner of his eyes when he smiles.

“What, that I get around?” Dylan raises his eyebrows.

John snorts. “No, that you have no problem hooking up in public.”

“I hadn’t even been drafted yet, much less played in the NHL. It seemed like a stupid thing to worry about.”

“And now?” John’s voice is arch, almost pointed.

Dylan glances at the emptiness around them, all the nearby houses with their lights off for the night, the shadows cast by the streetlights. There’s a nervousness coiled in his stomach, but not because of where they are, or the possibility of being seen. He slides up to straddle John’s lap, knees on either side of his hips. He doesn’t lower himself down, but stays hovering there, just the possibility of contact.

“I still don’t really give a shit,” he says. John tilts his head back and laughs, soft and warm. Dylan is helpless against the way his heart kicks up, how the sound makes him want to reach out and touch. He should feel guilty about this, about wanting this, and not wanting Ryan to know about it. He’s not, though.

John’s fingers touch his chin, thumb brushing over his mouth, and Dylan opens up and lets John press inside. He sucks, watching the way John stares at him, eyes intent even in the halflight. When John pulls back, smearing saliva over the side of Dylan’s jaw, Dylan says, “What about you? You’re much more famous than I am.”

John doesn’t reply to that at all, just cups the back of Dylan’s neck and tugs him into a kiss. Dylan lets himself slide down, fully onto John’s lap, and John’s free hand comes up to palm over his ass. The merry go round creaks softly underneath them, the shifting weight causing it to slowly rotate. Dylan closes his eyes and lets John kiss him.

It’s weird to think that he sometimes gets the things that he wants.

The first time they did this, he was jet-lagged and sloppily happy, fresh off the plane from Worlds, and John had looked more and more amused as Dylan talked, the three of them in Ryan’s living room after dinner with Dylan and Ryan’s parents. Dylan had been supine on the couch, somewhere between exhausted and punchy, saying, “Man, I was bummed when you got hurt and couldn’t come. It would’ve been fun to have you there.”

He thinks John hadn’t had any real intent, but he’d moved Dylan’s legs enough that he could sit underneath them, draping Dylan’s feet back over his lap. His hand had stayed on Dylan’s ankle, too tight not to be a constant reminder, but casual. After Ryan went to bed, Dylan had waited long enough to pretend it was safe, snaked his way around until he was halfway into John’s lap, and had been rewarded when John kissed him. He ended up sucking John off there on the couch, as quickly and quietly as he could manage, John’s hand hovering above him, and then threaded into the hair at the back of his neck. Afterward, John stuffed his hand down the front of Dylan’s shorts and jerked him off, letting Dylan muffle any noises against his neck. They hadn’t talked about it, but it hadn’t felt necessary.

Since then they’ve kept it out of Ryan’s house –– too easy to get caught, especially with Dylan staying there this summer –– but they haven’t gone more than a few days between. Dylan feels like he’s treading water, like John still has a hand wrapped around his ankle and could pull him under at any moment. 

On the merry go round, he lets John slide a hand down the back of his sweats, satisfaction sluicing through him as John’s breath catches, realizing he’s not wearing underwear. 

“You’re really something,” John says, mouth sliding over Dylan’s cheekbone, his jaw, just below his ear.

“That a good thing or a bad thing?” Dylan asks. He wants to know if John thinks about him when they aren’t together, but he doesn’t want to be entirely transparent. He doesn’t want to be the kid with a stupid crush on his brother’s best friend.

“It’s a compliment.” John laughs, moving his hand up underneath Dylan’s t-shirt, pressing against each notch in his spine. “I’ve never done this before, you know.”

“Done what?”

“Let a cute boy climb into my lap in public,” John says. His hand feels huge against Dylan’s shoulder blades, and warm. His thighs are solid underneath Dylan’s, and his mouth is soft and unyielding when he kisses Dylan again.

It’s easy to let the current pull him down. John kisses with confidence, a hand on the side of Dylan’s jaw so that he can move Dylan where he wants him. Dylan wraps his hands into the soft fabric of John’s t-shirt, bunching it up against his back. It takes so little for John to wind him up. Dylan thought about what this would be like for years before he made it happen.

Eventually, John leans back and tugs Dylan down with him, until Dylan’s body is blanketing John, their legs tangled together and hanging off the edge of the merry go round. They kiss until Dylan loses track of time, until his mouth is humming with use, and he hitches up against John, unconsciously looking for friction. When John laughs into the kiss, Dylan realizes what he’s doing and stills, shuddering as John’s fingernails scratch down his back to the waistband of his sweats.

“Not the most comfortable place to get off,” John says. He sounds amused. It’s embarrassing how far Dylan would let him go. “And I’d rather not have to sleep on Ryan’s couch in sticky boxers.”

“Ugh,” he says. He pushes himself up, looking down at John’s mussed hair, his red mouth. There’s enough light to see the things that he likes. “I’d lend you a clean pair.”

“Make an excuse and come over tomorrow,” John says. He tugs Dylan down for another quick kiss, and then nudges him off to the side. Dylan watches him adjust himself in his shorts, and thinks idly about getting on his knees. Wonders if John would say no to that too. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Dylan raises his eyebrows. “How will you do that?”

John shrugs, tugging his shirt back into place and trying to pat his hair back into place. “Besides with sex? I don’t know, I could cook you breakfast — or lunch, depending on when you make it over. My omelet skill are pretty well developed, you know.”

“Hm, okay,” Dylan says, trying to keep any surprise or pleasure out of his voice. John comes over and cooks for Ryan — and Dylan, when he’s around — pretty regularly, but he’s never offered it at his place before. He hasn’t asked Dylan over like this, either. Dylan stands, holding out his hand for John’s, and tugging him up. John uses his grip to pull Dylan in close, kissing him again, like he can’t stop himself. Dylan’s heart clenches, and he reminds himself to be cool. He’s not going to get ahead of himself now.

“Let's go home,” John says. “If Ryan’s waiting up for us, you owe me ten dollars.”

“We just went for a walk,” Dylan says.

John says, “Okay,” and then rubs a hand through Dylan’s unruly hair before shoving him in the direction of Ryan’s house. “Come over early enough that we can go for a run before it gets too hot.”

“You promised me sex, not training,” Dylan says, and has to smile at the look, fondly exasperated, that John shoots him. If they spend too much time together, Ryan will get suspicious. He knows Dylan pretty well. But Dylan isn’t prepared to say no, not even if it adds to the risk. He’ll show up every time John invites him.

The walk back is as silent and still as the walk to the school had been. It’s early enough that the sun is well below the horizon, not even a glimmer of pink in the sky, just on the other side of 3:30 AM. They’ll get a couple hours of sleep before Ryan wakes up, before John heads back to his apartment, and Dylan makes his excuses to join him. Dylan yawns. He wasn’t tired before but he is now, even the low level of arousal starting to ebb.

Ryan isn’t waiting for them in the living room. The house is dark and quiet, and John leaves his flip flops where he’d gotten them, next to the door. It feels like they’ve gotten away with something. He presses his hand underneath Dylan’s shirt in the back, rubbing his fingers over the muscles there, while Dylan kicks off his slides. It feels strangely intimate, almost proprietary, and the idea that John likes touching him is enough to make Dylan shiver. John sighs and kisses Dylan’s cheek, before shuffling back over to the couch. Dylan watches him flop down, and it feels safe enough to smile to himself, where John won’t see him.

“See you in the morning,” he whispers, and then heads back to his room, to bed.


End file.
